The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1887-05-20
EBENsBURG PA FRIDAY. MAY 90 1887.
THE OSWEGATCHIE TOAO-HUNTER.
How The General Rescued His Onion
Patch From Grubs.

How The General Rescued His Onion
Patch From Grubs.
They tell a good story of the dainty
reformer. Newton Martin Curtis, up
in st. Lawrence County, New York,
where he has always lived.
Curtis made an excellent record as
a soldier during the war, and as every
body who knows him knows, had an
eve shot ont at Fort Fisher, where
he was the first man into the Con-
federate works.
After the war he returned to the wild
Businesses of St. Lawrence County and
started on a new career which par
alvZed his neighbors. He began to
show his experienced and expert farmer
neighbors how to farm.
1t is true that up to that time he
could not distinguish the difference
between harrow and a furrOw, but
his war experience had made linn a
great man. and his rank of major
general by brevet had placed him in
a position where to receive advice
would be not only ridiculous but
positively mOrtifying.
He bought q farm of some hundred
acres and ploughed into 1t on his
own hook and in his own way. One
season he raised nothing but corn,
another nothing but wheat. Then
came a year when there was an onion
famine.
Here was the Generals opportunity.
He turned his farm of several hun
dred acres into one enormous onion
patch. Some of his neighbors shook
their heads. Others expostulatod with
him. Many tried to advise him to
change his plan.
- The weeds will ruin you and the
grubs destroy the crops, they said.
In vain The obdurate hero of
Fort Fisher knew it all. Had he
come from the command of thous-
ands of men to be told his business
b. illiteratc and obscure St. Lawrence
County farmers?
The onions began to sprout. So
did the weeds. The General took off
his coat and energetically began on the
weeds a crusade of determination.
1t was then that he made a fresh
discovery. Grubs nearly half foot
In length, In myriads, were chewing
up his precious food. Discouraged?
Not hci He merely scratched his head
and pondercd. He gazed reAectively
at his neighbors' fields laughing with
plenty He ransacked his library for
an antidote for grubs
If the question had been one of flank
ing a victorious army or of charging
an enemy's works, he would not have
hesitated for n moment what was the
proper and most decisive thing TO do,
but as 1t was the mOmentous issue of
glubs he was utterly at sea, and In the
end had to give IT up.
Finally n nciChbor came to his re
.hef-a sympathetic and kind hearted
neighbor who knew nothing OF war but
a great deal about farms.
''The only way to kill them ere
grubs," he said, " is to give EN- toads. 5"
So the General advertised for toads at
ten cents a dozen delivered on his
farm.
Plaques of Egvptr' he cried, when
he saw a procession a quarter of mile
long marching up to his place with
from dozen to ten dozen toads.
Every day, regular as the sun arose,
the procession appeared, received its
ten cents a dozen for the batrachians
and left, and no doubt would have con-
tinued till the present time had not
the General made the shocking dis
cOvery that while the toads were de-
Gvered in the morning, they we're
covertly collected at night and resold to
him the following morning. Hence his
name-the " toad-hunter of the Oswe-
gatchie, or the disappointed farmer.
: n. Y. World.